


Legacy

by blackelement7



Category: Naruto
Genre: Gen, Itachi is already dead, This comes as a surprise to no one but Sakura, does it count as major character death if it happened years ago in canon, takes place during the Pein's Assault arc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-29
Updated: 2019-09-29
Packaged: 2020-11-01 07:11:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20811134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackelement7/pseuds/blackelement7
Summary: On a dark road on the way to a new future for Konoha, two unlikely people meet."Give me your strength to do what I must."





	Legacy

It is a dark night when they first meet, truly face to face for the first time, on a dark road that is framed by a latticework of shadows.

They both walk silently; each has a destination that must be reached, but neither hurries. She dreads the imminent confrontation that will, at best, drain her healing powers even more than her work all afternoon on the dying and no longer dying of Konoha, and he—well, he will get where he is going eventually.

As is proper of shinobi, their footsteps are muted and unechoing, but she can hear her heart pounding furiously as she looks up and sees him. Her tired and chakra-raw hands tremble as she carefully tucks a strand of bloodstained hair behind her ear and addresses the space above his shoulder, directly to the left of his chin.

“Uchiha Itachi.” Her voice comes out pained and weary even to her own ears, and she winces at such a show of weakness before someone like him.

But all he does is tilt his head and return her greeting, albeit more politely. “Haruno Sakura-san.” His voice, like that of the clone she encountered once before, is calm and unruffled. He seems detached from his emotions, distant somehow. But she can feel his gaze on her face, burning with something she cannot name. “You are going after Naruto-kun.” There is no question in his voice, but she answers anyway.

“He went after Pein’s real body, and I couldn’t go with him until everyone who was still alive had been healed,” she says cautiously, and wonders why she is telling him this—why she is telling him anything.

“Everyone who was… still alive?” The words are spoken slowly. If he were anybody but Uchiha Itachi, she would call his tone disbelieving.

She nods stiffly. “Pein destroyed most of Konoha with one of his attacks, before Naruto arrived.”

He shifts, blinks; she thinks she imagines the brief flash of emotion—_painsorrowangerfriefworryanxiety_—that crosses his alabaster face. A single heartbeat later, he is unyielding stone again, and his voice is even. All he says in reaction is, “Naruto-kun went alone?”

“Yes.” Her eyes flash, daring him to challenge her friend’s decision. “But he knew we’d follow him eventually.”

“And you go alone, unafraid to travel by yourself?” he murmurs, his eyes still trained on her.

“I hardly expected to find you,” she replies quietly, watching his hair blow in the gentle breeze.

“And still, you do not seem surprised,” he notes with scant interest.

She laughs softly, shifts her eyes to look directly into his. “After all that has happened in the last few days, I don’t believe there’s much that would shock me. I watched—” Her voice falls silent for a moment before gaining strength. “I watched it burn. I watched it all burn down, until Konoha was nothing but ash and bodies and _screaming_ and _pain_ and—”

He makes a soft noise deep in his chest and his feet shift slightly, causing her to break off and smile wanly at him.

“But at least I still have my precious people,” she whispers, and she sees the anguish and the ghosts (but not regret, because he does not, _cannot_, regret what he did) in those startlingly dark, obsidian eyes. “I was looking through Konoha’s old mission records a while back, you know, and I realized that you are… the bravest person I’ve ever met.”

Shock and sorrow cloud his eyes as he realizes that _she knows_.

She inclines her head. “Naruto is more than fit to finish the job you began. So… you don’t need to worry about that. I’m glad that I finally got to meet you.”

He hears the respect—not the innocent adoration of a boy he once knew, the boy for whom he sacrificed everything; not the hidden fear behind a thin veneer of praise from an arrogant clan (now a clan of ghosts and blood); but the honest admiration of a kunoichi who understands what it means to balance nation against self—in her voice, and he reaches out and catches her arm as she shuffles past him, having said all she has ever wanted to say to him.

Startled malachite eyes dart up to meet his and she stiffens as his light touch causes her feet to come to a grinding halt against her will.

“I am glad,” he whispers hoarsely,” that our paths were allowed to meet here, Sakura-san. If you see my brother...” He hesitates, as if afraid to say too much. “Tell Sasuke I loved him.” 

How can she say no? She nods mutely and watches as the furrow between his eyebrows smooths out ever so slightly. With more trust than is probably warranted, given the circumstances, she holds herself still as he raises the hand that was cupping her elbow to her face, curling his fingers in a strange gesture.

The tips of his two extended fingers tap once, firmly, against the middle of her forehead, where the strength of a hundred men lies quiescent.

She is close enough to smell the ashy scent that—by all accounts, and from her experience with Sasuke—seems to wreathe all Uchiha, close enough to count every single one of his long lashes if she so desires. But the only inhalations and exhalations she hears are her own.

His hand leaves her forehead just as she registers the rhythmic rise and fall of her own chest, and the corresponding stillness of his. A heavy, dreadful weight settles in the bottom of her heart when he murmurs, “Thank you.”

And then he disappears, leaving only swirling dust in the night air, and a necklace with three rings, which she catches with the hand that had begun to reach out--maybe to press against his ribcage, in search of an elusive heartbeat, or maybe to stop him from leaving. A scarlet ring drops to the ground. She walks forward, crushing it with her heel, grinding the shards of Akatsuki’s power into the dirt.

“No, Itachi-san,” she says to the lingering stillness that is all that remains of one of Konoha’s greatest shinobi. “Thank _you_.”

Her steps grow faster; already the sun is rising to the east, casting shadows on the ruins of Naruto and Pein’s battle. Already she is searching for Naruto’s chakra signature.

She reaches up and fastens the necklace around her own neck, to rest lightly against her collarbones (near her heart).

“Grant me your courage and your strength to do what I must,” she says softly, and strides forward to meet the dawn.

_this is not the_

**end.**

_only the beginning_

**Author's Note:**

> Old fic, touched up and transferred from fanfiction.net. This version is a lot more comfortable to me, even though I've forgotten the entire plot of Naruto in the years since I wrote it.


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